1,184 fish make up remarkable river catch!

SOMETIMES the smallest fish can win matches – just ask James Robbins, who netted 1,184 bleak in five hours to prevail in a contest on the River Wye recently.

Fishing a RiverFest qualifier in Hereford, James made the most of low and clear river conditions from peg 76 in an area known as The Railings to put together a 47lb 4oz bag on his way to top spot.

James, who works as UK brand manager for tackle firm Cadence, had begun by targeting big perch, but quickly realised a change of tactics was needed.

“I was fishing a whole lobworm but it was getting destroyed by bleak!” he told us.

“After 25 minutes I made the switch and from then on it was mad fishing.”

James set himself a target of 1,000 fish, and after getting into a rhythm was on the road to victory.

“At the weigh-in, someone mentioned that the catch might be a new bleak record for the Wye. I’m waiting for that to be confirmed and looking forward to the final on the Trent,” he said.

James and his amazing Wye match-winning net of 1,184 bleak.

Thousands of bleak landed in amazing Wye match

Of all the fish you can be plagued by in a match, bleak have to be the worst of all – but try telling that to Steve Maher and Trevor Chalk after they whipped out literally thousands of these tiny fish to take first and second on a rising River Wye recently!

You see bleak don’t weigh much and often take a bait intended for roach and chub but faced with a river that came up several feet during a winter league round at Hereford, the two men got stuck in with whip tactics to weigh in 46-8-0 and 33-4-0 respectively.

The match saw Steve finish the day standing up to fish owing to the rapidly rising levels while Trevor was adamant there were fish topping behind his box such were the sheer numbers of bleak in his swim, Trevor counting 1,250 fish in his final tally, so god only knows how many Steve ended up with!

“The peg I drew – 92 – has been brilliant for roach and dace on a normal river and I did begin fishing for them but soon got plagued by bleak and caught next to no roach,” Steve said.

“That made my mind up after half an hour to go all-out for bleak on a 3m whip with maggot and they got bigger as the match went on and came shorter too. However, I had to keep moving my seatbox back up the platform with the rising water and in the end, I threw everything on top of the bank and stood up to fish with 90 minutes to go.”

“This wasn’t quite as good, but the big bleak kept coming and after catching solidly for four hours and at the end I was genuinely interested in just what they’d all weigh so to win the match with them was satisfying and rewarding for all the hard work!” he added.

Trevor was further down the stretch at peg 64, a noted bleak peg that was full of fish from the word go and he went for them straight away, aiming to catch a big weight with a 1,000-plus fish target fishing the whip at 2m and 270 of them in the opening hour was on the pace, a speed that never relented as he finished with well over four figures in terms of fish numbers and second in the match.